Third-Ranked Open Women Look For 25th Straight Ivy Win vs. Columbia

The open women, ranked third in the latest CRCA/USRowing Coaches Poll, will take on No. 16 Columbia Saturday morning on Overpeck Lake in Ridgefield, N.J.

This will be the first of three straight races away from Lake Carnegie for the Tigers, and they will be facing a very confident Columbia squad Saturday at 10 am.

The Lions defeated both Yale and Penn in their season-opening race on the Schuylkill River last weekend. A quick start pushed Columbia to a victory of more than five seconds over Yale. That victory gave Columbia one of the two biggest moves in this week’s poll. The Lions gained nearly 90 votes and went from a three-way tie for 18th to solo 16th.

Princeton, which defeated Top 15 opponents Ohio State and Brown last weekend, has won its last 24 Ivy races, including a five-second win over Columbia last season. Next to its Eisenberg Cup battle with Yale, that was the closest race of the Ivy League regular season last year.

While Princeton may not have moved in the national poll this week, a sign of the respect voters have for the Orange and Black could be seen in other spots. Both teams that the Tigers defeated last weekend actually moved up in the poll; Ohio State went from sixth to fourth, while Brown went from 13th to 12th.

Six of the eight Ivy League teams are currently ranked. Yale is the only other team in the Top 10 (10th), while Harvard, Brown, Columbia and Cornell are all between 11th and 20th.